Having an effective Web presence and social media for your business is not just an option — it’s an absolute necessity. There are no shortages of Web developers and "consultants" who can build you a website or manage your Facebook page. Outsourcing makes sense for businesses that don’t have the in-house talent to address these issues.
Of course, this assumes your company has a marketing budget. There’s a whole universe of nonprofits lacking the discretionary funds for social media.
That’s where Jen Barrett comes in.
A 40-something Punahou grad, Barrett has established a consulting business called Taming Tech for Good. A social entrepreneur, she developed a business model that takes its cue from the old adage, "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."
For a nonprofit this credo makes a lot of sense.
Instead of managing other people’s social media, Barrett’s business model is to train staffers to do the work themselves. That saves her clients a bundle in fees and provides them with long-term sustainability. Although her original plan was to strictly work with nonprofits, she soon realized there was a tremendous demand for her services from for-profit businesses as well.
How does it work?
She starts off with a one-on-one talk-story session to identify a client’s goals and needs. Once this is completed, she moves them to an online training program she developed that, for example, will teach customers how to build a WordPress site. At the end of 30 days, the customer has a website integrated with other social media platforms and, most important, a strategic platform.
What exactly sets Taming Tech for Good apart from other consultancies?
Barrett sees herself as a trainer or coach rather than a "hired gun." She makes her program "jargon free" so that the site-building steps are conveyed in everyday language. She also augments training videos and demos with one-to-one sessions on strategy and troubleshooting.
She charges $250 to $750 for her program — depending on how much of her time is needed. For typical consulting she’ll charge $125 an hour.
Often customers ask her, "Couldn’t someone just go online and avail themselves of the free content on Youtube?"
Barrett agrees that many free tutorials are available. Some are excellent but many are junk.
"Who has the time to sort through hundreds of videos?" she asks. "DIY is fine but you need to understand strategy. Posting for the sake of posting gets you nothing. With government cutting nonprofit grants, building an org’s internal capacity to leverage social media — that is, teaching a man or a woman how to fish — can actually impact an organization’s survival."
GROWERS SECRET RESULTS
In December I looked at a local company called Growers Secret that has developed an organic fertilizer sold locally at Whole Foods.
Given the chance to try it out over the last few months, I provided samples to a couple of home gardeners in Kaimuki and to my wife, who used it on our front yard in Kaneohe.
From all quarters the results were positive. Vegetables, fruit trees and ornamentals seem to love the stuff, and we got a lot more blossoms out of plants in our backyard than ever before.
Granted, this was hardly a randomized, evidence-based study, but I think it’s safe to say that this Maui-founded company has a very good product.
Mike Meyer, former Internet general manager at Oceanic Time Warner Cable, is chief information officer at Honolulu Community College. Reach him at mmeyer@hawaii.edu.
